Monday, March 30, 2009

In the fall of 2009 Disney will finally release the long-awaited Frog Princess, renamed to The Princess and the Frog, featuring their first-ever full-fledged black princess. The upcoming makeover of the previously announced animation also includes a renaming of the Princess from Maddy to Tiana, the elimination of her past as a chambermaid to a white socialite, and the addition of Oprah Winfrey as the voice of Tiana’s mother.

All the controversy, however, has not been handled. It seems that the Prince himself is a white-looking guy, with the hint of Spanish in his accent. What? No black prince? What’s up with this?

You can bet there’s going to be a whole lot of yammering from all sides as we near the release date. Black folks will be crying that Disney does not think black-on-black love is marketable to little white girls, or their parents. On the other hand, some white folks will be saying that Disney is trying to push interracial ideas into the head of little white girls (and boys), as part of some PC conspiracy for them to feel bad about their whiteness. I’m leaning towards yammer no. 1, since Disney has historically come down on the side of marginalizing blacks.

On a slightly darker vector, it may be interesting to consider that little white girls associating with Tiana, in Disney’s view, might not swallow the Princess or themselves swooning over a handsome black prince. Or perhaps Disney does not want the future mothers of dwindling white America being imprinted so early in their lives with the notion of a black suitor. Disney may not want to take the blame for an up-tick in interracial marriages in about 15 or 20 years.

These are just a few thoughts on the upcoming debate, sure to get testy. And for the empirical record, my daughter loved Pocahontas, as a 5 year old, and has had an equal amount of black and white boy-crushes over the ensuing years – and I blame it all on Disney. My 13 year old son still falls into Harry Potter-speak, and this is Disney’s fault too, although they had nothing to do with the movie. Disney makes an easy target, as they have been manipulating kids, and parental coffers, from the get-go.

Friday, March 27, 2009

“We know all too little about the factors that affect the attitudes of the peoples of the world toward one another. It is clear, however, that color and race are at once the most important and the most enigmatic.”

John Hope Franklin

Morning Edition, March 27, 2009 · Historian John Hope Franklin, who died this week at 94, both chronicled and lived through racism in America. One of those firsthand experiences with racism came when he was a 12-year-old boy in Tulsa, Okla., in the 1920s.

"It was my first year as a Boy Scout, and I'm very, very excited about fulfilling all of the obligations of the Boy Scouts, and I've got so much enthusiasm and so much anxiety to be the best Boy Scout I can possibly be," he told his son, John W. Franklin, last year.

"One of the admonitions that we had was that we had to do a good deed every day," he said. So, while standing at a street corner in downtown Tulsa, Franklin was eyeing an opportunity to help while waiting for the light to turn, he recalled.

"And I saw this woman as she was stepping off the curb — and she had a cane — and I thought, 'Oh my goodness, she can't see,' " Franklin said. "And so I walked up to her and I said 'Could I help you cross?' She said, 'Oh, yes, I'm so glad.' And she grabbed on my arm as though I was the last person on earth."

"We got about halfway across the street — and she's so happy and laughing and talking — she said, 'Are you white or black?' And I told her I was colored, and she said, 'Get your filthy hands off of me,' and I got my hands off of her," Franklin said.

Franklin said that he had reflected on that moment: "That this woman, who could not see and who was in desperate need of help, was not as interested in help as she was in being certain that a young black man didn't touch her. And that if she couldn't see, she certainly couldn't know whether my hands were clean or dirty. And I knew then that we were in deep trouble to overcome that kind of racial hostility."

"DALLAS (AP)—A police officer was placed on administrative leave Thursday over a traffic stop involving an NFL player whom he kept in a hospital parking lot and threatened to arrest while his mother-in-law died inside the building...

Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle apologized to the family and announced that Powell would be on paid leave pending an internal investigation...

“When we at the command staff reviewed the tape, we were embarrassed, disappointed,” Kunkle said. “It’s hard to find the right word and still be professional in my role as the police chief. But the behavior was not appropriate...”

“His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, the discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit,” Kunkle said...""

Monday, March 23, 2009

By now everyone has surely heard of the five shootings of Oakland Police officers over the weekend, resulting in four deaths, plus that of the parolee turned murderer. As a resident of Oakland, I was horrified when a BART Officer recently killed an unarmed man in custody. Today, I am equally horrified, times four, that these officers are gone by the actions of a vile being. But what I really want to talk about is what you will likely not see in the papers or news about this tragedy.

The first thing you will not see addressed, but perhaps pieced together in pictures, is that the four officers killed appeared to be white and their killer, particularly, was black, although this is what every honest reader wanted to know from the start. Why do we want to know, you ask? That’s easy. Ethnicity does not speak to guilt or innocence, but it is a very valid empirical story as to who, what and where notorious danger lurks.

The second thing you will not see written is why these police officers were so, umm, white. Oakland, with a sizable black population of 35% (white (23%), Latino (21%), and Asian (15%)) should have had at least one black person on the law’s side in this battle, but no. The reality is that both motorcycle or SWAT duty are coveted exam-positions where white males perform at a higher level and this is how this lone demographic found itself owning the wrong place at the wrong time slot.

The third thing you will not see written is that when police officers get injured or killed, the follow-on police work is often compromised to the detriment of the health and safety of the public and the officers themselves. While this is understandable, from an emotional standpoint, it is also an unacceptable profile for an officer, that they should take risks that increase the likelihood of injury to themselves or innocents. The SWAT officers clearly did not assume and prepare for the worst case scenario, causing me to wonder if emotions from their slain and gravely injured brother officers unduly influenced them.

The fourth, but hardly the last, thing you will not read about is the effect this tragedy will have on white officers and their relationship, good and bad, with black Oakland, and officers on the whole, engaging black suspects in the future. They can’t help but take a more aggressive and/or cautious posture toward them. Profiling will go up. Brutality will go up. Arrest will go up. Injuries will go up. Fatalities will go up. Lawsuits will certainly go up, and convictions will likely go down.

I don’t have a lot of answers, but I can tell you that until we stop hoping that we all just ‘get along’ and start speaking about things unspeakable, we are not going to make a lot of progress and people will continue to die senselessly, needlessly and tragically.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

For the twelve years my daughter has been in school, black girls have accused her of talking like a white girl. I take full responsibility for her plight, because during the same time her mother and I have insisted that she speak our language properly. Just two days ago my 85 year old mother reminded me that our house was the same, and how the First Lady’s recent admission, of her own childhood label of ‘talking like a white girl’, had touched her aging heart.

Many years ago, while living in Boston, Michele Obama’s point of importance was made clear by Caribbean immigrant black women armed with no formal skills, other than a command of English, who were able gain job opportunities in child care not available to equally qualified black-English speaking women. Simply put, responsible employers and parents of any color know that the first cut to be made toward a bright future is the ability to communicate well, and this training begins early.

Now both my kids know street-slang too, as did I, and this is okay as long as they use it appropriately. I call this cultural bilingualism. They need to be comfortable with different people. But let’s not be confused that the informal has any rightful claim on the formal. In 1996, the Oakland Unified School District wanted to make black-English, Ebonics, an acceptable standard of communication, but thankfully this nonsense was scuttled from the left, the right, and everywhere in between. Bad idea.

So I commend the First Lady on stepping up on this issue of language. Like it or not, women have always been (and always will be) at the centerpiece of our behaviors and especially those of the men who seek their attention. While she is at it, Michele could definitely push black women on taking better care of their physical selves as well, rather than attempting to recalibrate healthiness and attractiveness across a 50% obesity rate, black men and boys included. Also, I can't wait until Mrs. Obama starts clueing women in on attracting, focusing, and guiding men to heights.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Pope Benedict wants more Catholics, I get this. Africa is a growth region with a lot of uncommitted delegates (souls), so no surprise that he would be there making sure the Muslims, Hindus, and Mormons do not run off with the place. After all, the church has expenses too. Right here in Oakland, with a brand-spanking new cathedral ‘of the light’ that cost $200 million, we are faced with a restless bunch of diocesans in the dark trying to pay their bills.

I may not agree, but, all things being equal, I understand why the pontiff does not like condoms. Any shortage of little baby Catholics grows into an eventual shortage of grown-up worshipers with jobs to match tithing obligations. It all comes back to managing expense to the promise land – God loves accountants.

Of course what I do not understand is how the pontiff can challenge the truth that condoms prevent the spread of AIDS, especially to people who have yet to buy into his abstinence line. This is like giving away hymnals before people actually show up to your church to sing. And if they try some early off-key practice singing at home, then they die. Oops. My bad. I meant to say keep the books, but hold off on the singing until Sunday, when you get the full story.

It seems that in order to maximize the number of long-term Catholics, the Holy See would want the future faithful to immediately switch to safe sex, saving the missionary playbook on how to 'play', as catholicized monogamous couples, for when they are firmly in the church’s dogmatic clutches. I’m sure the Lord Almighty can distinguish between condom use to prevent the epidemic spread of a deadly disease, and 'jimmy-hat' haberdashery that limits the number new babies by faithful hetero-couples. So I ask, how come the Pope cannot make this distinction, in order to help save these poor Africans he so fervently desires for his flock?

Monday, March 16, 2009

I disturbed the feathers of a few friends yesterday when I declared that the Madoff guilty plea was little or no consolation to his crime. What knotted their knickers was my contention that authorities were speeding things along to ‘get it over and done with’. The crime-of-the-century nature opens up cauldrons of anti-Semitism that many would rather leave undisturbed.

My evidence of the ‘bum’s rush’ of the case stems from the authorities allowing Bernie to plead guilty as if he acted alone, when everyone believes that this could not have been the case. Sure, he had help licking the envelopes containing the bogus monthly statements to his victims, but I contend he also had the help of his family and other cohorts at the top, including his dear wife shuffling millions around in obvious show for the authorities.

I contend that Bernie’s prosecution should have been integrated into the obvious cohort, delayed if necessary, and the whole Madoff crew should be looking at enough time to have them rolling over on each other faster than you can say ‘putz’. Instead, we get this pseudo-closure of Madoff heading alone to a jail cell he knew was coming all along, and for which he has had years to prepare. The culmination of his crime was how to keep as many of his team out of jail and well-funded long after the authorities have declared victory over his carcass.

Well, I’m not buying it. While I loathe the historical anti-Semitic replay this crime beckons, I cannot sanction letting this very evil individual take a pass because there are anti-Semites among us waiting to pounce on what they would consider as evidence backing their 1,000 year old hatred. Bernie used affinity to scam his people, and now the authorities are using it in the clean-up. When our laws become vehicles of PC expedience around painful chapters, we all lose and lose big. Madoff targeting Jews is no different than Ponzi himself going after Italians. Yes, Bernie should go to jail, but he expected it and planned for it. His real punishment can only be that the people who helped him steal all that money should be behind bars as well.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Tiger Woods is back playing golf for now, and those who love him better enjoy it while it last. Those long drives have taken their toll on the knees and we are witnessing the beginning of the end of one of the greatest golfers that ever played the game. But the question of the day is why I believe no black golfer will likely ever replace the spot he’s owned at the top, and why so few will even make the cut to try.

To illustrate this I reach back to a lesser-known Russian sprinter from the Ukraine, Valeri Borzov (featured). Borzov was one lighting-fast white man who briefly held the gold-spot in the sprints at the time of the 1972 Olympics, and long after blacks had come to dominate the fast-twitch muscle-fiber events. But Borzov loved soccer and was a diligent student as well, so his track and field glory faded quickly, mostly by his lack of focus.

As Borzov was a sprinter who happened to be white, Tiger is a golfer who happens to be a physical and cultural admixture, largely black. We made him a hopeful breakthrough of future black professional golfers, but this has not happened, and makes no more sense than Russians expecting that Borzov was the beginning of more than a smidgen of Russian presence in the 100 and 200 meter sprints.

Golf is a game steeped in European culture, just as running and sprinting is steeped in primordial African and African-American culture. Earl Woods was a golf-maniac who got lucky in having a gifted son. Little else mattered than little Tiger with a club in his hand. But be clear that the elder and junior Woods were driven partly by the No Negros Allowed experience, just as the Politburo reveled in a fast Ukrainian crashing the podium gatherings of black Americans, something Hitler promised in 1942, but failed to do.

The up-shot is that we get all excited about first, Obama coming to mind, but the truth is that somewhere on the planet there will always exist persons of any ethnic background and possessing the gifts to unlock any door humanity can present. This is inclusive of different cultures advancing at different rates and to different heights, with disparities that coax out the best and worse. It is also why experiencing other cultures is so vital to progress, compared to living in a shell.

“Only an idiot would ever measure the heights of lovers by their physiques.”

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Everyday people act stupid. In fact, they seem to be getting dumber with each new You Tube. Black people compete too well in this category. I recall seeing a black woman, just the other day, attempt to justify breastfeeding her infant child and talking on a cell phone, while driving an air-bag-equipped mini-van. She had the audacity to say (on camera) that she would do it again, despite what the police confirmed. This brings up how intelligence is not just a begrudging distinction, by those who failed physical education (PE) in grade school.

Intelligence matters because disparities in intelligence matter. Disparities matter because they settle, on average, the competition for scarce resources, while establishing who will have or have not, enjoy or suffer, or even live or die. Measures of intelligence like IQ, however imperfect, matter because we need relative short-cuts for identifying who’s got it and who does not. More is better and less is not.

So now, who cares? What’s the big deal anyway? Well, we all should care. Blacks definitely should care. Backing up, when whites long-ago said that blacks were inferior and could not cogitate to their level, blacks took it upon themselves to prove them wrong. Blacks begged, borrowed, and stole education as a way to disprove the empirical inferiority exampled by whites. The more whites argued black inferiority with charts and graphs, the greater the commitment of blacks to prove them wrong. Not a bad strategy for focusing black energies onto the win-win of education, and the benefits of the rule-of-law beneath it.

Now fast-forward to today where we see every excuse under the sun why 50% of black kids fail to pass an eighth-grade reading test, derailing their chance to gain a high school diploma. Minus a diploma, they will undoubtedly live an inferior life dictated by an inferior intelligence, exampled by unapologetic women breastfeeding their precious infants, while 200 mph bags threaten to blast said infants into lifeless oblivion. And whereupon sadly, a white lawyer will sue the automaker, the cell phone maker, the airbag maker, and the unused child-seat manufacturer, for millions on behalf of the ‘poor’ disadvantaged family.

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